Times have changed for SeaWorld. If that wasn’t already obvious, it became clear earlier this week when officials at the company announced their controversial orca shows would be phased out at the San Diego park — implicitly acknowledging the shows are a relic of outdated attitudes toward marine mammals.
Times have changed for SeaWorld. If that wasn’t already obvious, it became clear earlier this week when officials at the company announced their controversial orca shows would be phased out at the San Diego park — implicitly acknowledging the shows are a relic of outdated attitudes toward marine mammals.
If SeaWorld is going to continue to house killer whales for a while — a reasonable conclusion because its existing whales would have little chance of surviving in the wild — it makes sense to create a more natural setting for them, as the company plans to do, and make the exhibit more like an educational aquarium than a marine circus.
But that should be just the start. Will SeaWorld continue to breed its killer whales, counting on them to bring in attendance in their new, more natural setting? That would be an improvement over shows that call on the animals to engage in human-designed tricks. But a life in small quarters is not appropriate for whales that travel such long distances in the wild.
SeaWorld would be better off ending its breeding program, allowing its orca population to die out naturally — which would still give it decades of exhibition — and reserving its tanks for injured animals that cannot survive in the wild.
If SeaWorld doesn’t do that on its own, it might be forced to do so over time. Last week, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced plans to introduce legislation to ban the capture of wild orcas (something SeaWorld hasn’t done in decades) and captive breeding.
Such efforts are reflections of a larger obstacle confronting SeaWorld. The documentary “Blackfish,” dismissed as inaccurate by the company, has strengthened a growing sense that keeping orcas in captivity is wrong. Attendance at the marine park has been down, and it’s unclear whether paying customers will buy the idea that a killer whale in a nicer-looking tank is contented, any more than they bought SeaWorld’s assertion that the performing orcas were willing and happy collaborators in their training and shows in the past.
— Los Angeles Times